T'was the Night Before
by Tracy
Summary: Another 'uneventful' holiday with the Caine family. Part of the Partners Series stories.


T'was the Night Before....  
  
by Tracy LeCates 

The snow had begun to fall again, freshening the blanket of white already covering most of the state. Christmas music filled the car, one holiday song leading into the next on every station. Though the ride from their home to the airport wasn't more than twenty miles, the weather had been working against them, slowing their progress along the "short cut" Peter had assured his wife would save them from battling Christmas Eve traffic. The route he'd chosen would have been a wise one in good weather, but the "road less traveled" was also the road less plowed. 

"There's gotta be a tape in here somewhere..." Nicole grumbled, pawing through the contents of the Stealth's glove box for the fourth time since leaving the house. 

Peter brought a black-gloved hand up to idly scratch at his nose, effectively covering the slight smirk on his lips. "There's not, Nick. They're all in the Jeep." 

"It's a plot," she declared, flipping the glove box shut with a *BANG*. "A plot to drive me absolutely insane. How can a person listen to this mind-numbing schlock every waking second for five weeks and not go Postal? It's on every radio station, it's on in the stores, in the malls, in the restaurants and banks, it was even on in the service station when I took the Jeep in to get it fixed. There's no way to get away from it! I'm ready to take a flame-thrower to Frosty the Snowman, I wanna strangle the Little Drummer Boy, and do you know why Rudolph's nose was all red? Because he drank too much. And if I hear those voices telling me to have a "Holly Jolly Christmas" one more time I'm gonna throw up." 

The laughter erupted before he could stop it. "It's not that bad. I thought you were starting to like the holidays." 

"Oh, I don't mind the holidays," she explained, trying once more to find something palatable on the radio. "It's just that I don't like having peace on Earth and good will towards man being crammed down my throat, complete with a sale price." 

"Speaking of price," he reminded her, "The sight of Kermit dressed as Santa for the kids this afternoon was pretty priceless." 

As hard as she tried, Nicole couldn't contain the laughter. The sight of their partner "Ho-ho-ho-ing" his way into the office was ingrained in her memory forever. Her jaw had dropped clean to the floor at the vision dressed in red, with a long white beard spirit-gummed to his face, green glasses and a suspicious lump in the back of the red jacket which could only have been the Desert Eagle. "What a dork..." she snorted merrily. 

"And you have to admit that after he put the kids into his sleigh..." 

"...his green convertible sleigh..." 

"...and took them to Mom and Paul's house, you and I had a pretty good afternoon." 

Laughter subsiding, the smile lingered. She nodded in agreement. "We did. Got the last of the kids' presents, got all the wrapping done." 

"Got some UNwrapping done," Peter grinned as one hand slid off the steering wheel and found its way to her thigh. 

The grin spreading across her face mirrored his as she moved closer. "That we did. I even got to sit on your lap and tell you what I want for Christmas." 

"Only if you're a good girl," he reminded her with an amused glance. 

Nicole leaned over and lightly kissed his ear. "I was planning on being unbelievably good tonight, now that you mentioned it," she whispered. 

Peter turned his head quickly to steal a kiss before moving his eyes back to the snow covered road they traveled. "Santa is looking forward to that." 

"Santa and Mrs. Claus are takin' the sled on the nice plowed highway on the way home, traffic be damned," she declared, sinking back into her own seat to allow her husband to concentrate on his driving. The Stealth was decidedly not the vehicle of choice for the current weather conditions, but the Jeep had chosen that morning to blow a gasket. 

"You got it, Boss," the detective agreed. Both hands returned to the steering wheel, eyes squinting to see through the thickening snow. 

Another holiday tune began with the sound of jingling bells, and Nicole reached forward and shut the radio off completely. "Out of respect for your Buddhist upbringing..." she explained with a strained smile. 

"Want me to chant for you inst..." Peter began, his words cut short as he twisted the steering wheel, desperately attempting to turn into the skid as the Stealth lost its tenuous hold on the road and began to slide. 

Nicole's hands gripped the armrest, her eyes flickering quickly to assure herself Peter also wore his seatbelt as she realized they were not going to make the next corner in the road. 

******* 

The cold December wind blew the falling snow over the Stealth, which had come to rest, nose first, in a snowbank. 

"You okay?" Peter asked quickly as the world came back into focus. 

"Peachy..." came the shaky reply from the passenger seat. With the brief unsnapping of her seat belt, she leaned across to take her husband's face in her black-gloved hands. "Are YOU okay?" 

The detective nodded, his hazel eyes meeting their gray counterparts. "Fine. Just banged my head on the steering wheel. Thick skull, no damage," he assured her with a slight smile. 

The relief was visible on her face as she let out a long breath. "Not your best landing. I don't suppose you can just put it in reverse and get us back on the road, huh?" she asked, glancing at the windshield. Their view ahead was pure white. 

"Off hand I'd have to say, no." 

"Give me your cell phone," the two voices said in unison. 

"My phone is in the Jeep!" Nicole groaned. "Where's yours?" 

Peter's reply was long in coming. "...home. In the charger. Tom and Mel are gonna kill us if we leave them standing around at there at the airport. Damnit." 

With a sigh, Nicole opened the passenger door and struggled out into the deep snowdrift. "Their plane wouldn't have landed in this anyway. Trust me, we'd get to the airport and find out they've been snowed in somewhere. Let's get the road flares out of the trunk." 

***********

Emergency flashers on and road flares set in place to attract the attention of any passers-by, the stranded couple dragged an old blanket out of the trunk and returned to the relative warmth of the Stealth. 

"Be warmer if we got into the back seat," Peter suggested, crawling through the front seats with the blanket. 

"This is the oldest trick in the book," his wife groaned, moving to join him under the blanket. 

The detective smiled as his arms drew the warm body closer. "Maybe, but it worked," he laughed. 

The falling snow had covered the rear window of the car, obscuring their vision of the road behind them. "Kind of reminds me of our first Christmas Eve together." 

A soft laugh was her immediate reply. "I assume you're referring to the earlier part of the evening when we got stuck in the elevator on our way up to the penthouse." 

Peter buried his face in Nicole's thick hair, pressing a cold nose against her neck to earn himself an indignant gasp. "As opposed to the later part of the evening when you had to take me to the hospital to have my appendix out," he chuckled. "Our very first hospital-holiday." 

"Even that was better than that Christmas party we went to that night." 

Peter searched his memory and a smile tugged at the corners of his lips. "The one at Skalany's?" he asked innocently. Mary Margaret had thrown the party that Christmas Eve, and the everyone from the 101st not on duty that evening had been there. Peter had still been on the force, and Nicole had been six months pregnant. He'd spent a good portion of the evening trying to keep his wife from strangling Jordan with a festive rope of Christmas garland. 

"Yeah, the one at Skalany's," she scowled. "That party was the reason I almost stopped going out into public while pregnant. Why is it that people assume it's all right to just walk up to a pregnant woman and start touching her? Why is that? There were so many people rubbing my belly, I was starting to feel like a freakin' Buddha." 

Peter's gloved hands slid into the warmth beneath her coat, as she moved compliantly, body fitting comfortably against his. "Actually, this reminds me more of that stakeout, back when we were first working together. The week before the banquet." 

"Ahhhh, the stakeout...." she snickered. "Sitting in a car with you on the coldest bloody night of the whole year. A thermos full of Blake's bad brew, and a box full of stale donuts. Sitting outside that apartment building, freezing our asses off." 

He nodded, the memory as clear as if it were yesterday. "Yeah, and the guy we were supposed to be watching came out to wait for his buddy, and wound up standing right in front of our damn car. I thought two weeks worth of surveillance were shot to Hell right there." 

"But, I saved the stakeout," she grinned broadly. 

Peter began to laugh softly, his warm breath tickling her neck. "In an incredibly creative way." 

_~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~ ~ ~ ~~ ~~ _

_The soft beep of Nicole's wristwatch alarm sounded in the dark, quiet interior of the unmarked sedan. _

_"What's that for?" Peter asked, taking another sip of Blake's brew, though it had long ago gone cold. _

_"Eleven o'clock," she mumbled in reply. _

_He glanced over at her curiously. "And what's supposed to happen at eleven o'clock?" _

_"I shoot myself if I'm still sitting in this car with you." _

_"Nice," he laughed. "I thought you'd decided that I wasn't so bad?" _

_"You're not," his partner answered, setting aside a stale, half eaten donut and stretching languorously in her seat. "It's just that I'm turning into an ice-pop, and I've now officially run out of small talk," she announced, sinking lower into her seat and blowing into her hands to warm them. _

_"Did that about ten minutes ago." _

_"Oooops, how terribly socially awkward of me not to have noticed..." She started to laugh. And laugh harder. _

_Peter smiled, slightly amused and slightly curious. "What?" _

_"We do really well together when we're brainstorming on a case, chat a mile a minute coming up with theories, click right along during interrogations, communicate flawlessly without words when the shit is hitting the fan, but put the two of us in a car for a couple of hours and we turn into stones." _

_"What can you talk about?" he asked, keeping one eye on the apartment building they'd been watching for hours. _

_The ex-merc's laughter faded as she stared out the window on her side. "I don't know..." she replied quietly. "Work is pretty much my life." _

_"Nothing else? What about before you came here. What did you do?" _

_"Was a cop across town for two years. Before that I just... you know... killed people," she shrugged. _

_"That's Kermit's line," he reminded her with a grin. _

_Nicole turned and gave him a smile. "See that? I can't even come up with my own lines." _

_"And you're hiding behind that," he accused gently. "There's more to you than you let people see." _

_"So I should start wearing short skirts and low cut sweaters so people can see more of me?" she grinned. _

_"You know what I mean. But those wouldn't be too bad either," Peter suggested, finally feeling comfortable enough with her to make a remark of that nature. He let his gaze drift out to the silent streets, attempting to banish the mental picture she'd just conjured up for him. The passing weeks had seen changes in their relationship. Changing from two people who could barely speak a civil word to one another, to true partners, and friends. She still didn't display or tolerate the same kind of casual, friendly contact he shared with Skalany or Jody, and he doubted she ever would. However, he at least now knew that it wasn't something he should take personally. _

_A wry smile crossed the detective's face, visible in the weak light from the streetlamp. "You peekin' again?" _

_Peter kept his gaze averted, and attempted to hide the smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "Maybe... depends..." _

_"On?" _

_"Whether or not admitting to it would get me hurt," he laughed. _

_She snickered, turning just the slightest bit red. "Thought you liked to live dangerously." _

_"I also like to live." _

_"The question is - do you like to live AND peek?" _

_He turned to look at her, a grin on his face. _

_She grinned back at him, eyebrows slowly arching. "You dog..." she laughed. _

_"With my rep, that surprises you?" _

_"Peter, I could give a rat's ass what anyone else says, about me, about you, about the world being round... I don't give a shit. I trust my eyes, and my eyes have only seen the end of the thing you had with the bottle blonde ho, and that's it." _

_"Someone who doesn't give a shit... that is refreshing." _

_"So, now I know why it takes us so long to get up a flight of stairs together," she laughed. _

_He grinned again. "And why I always let you go first?" _

_"Checkin' out my ass," she laughed, shaking her head. _

_"Nice one." _

_"Same to you." _

_"Been peeking too?" Peter's hand came up to cover his heart, his mouth hanging open in dramatic shock at the answering grin. "You dog. So, I guess the question is, are we just going to keep peeking?" _

_Nicole's eyes were drawn back out to the street by a movement in the shadowy entrance to the rundown apartment building. Someone was coming out. A moment later, as the figure drew closer to the streetlight, she recognized him as the suspect whose apartment they'd been watching. He sauntered out into the cold night and took up a position, leaning against the streetlamp a few feet from the car, his eyes moving nervously to his watch. _

_*Shit, oh shit, shit...* She didn't have time to warn Peter as she saw their quarry start to look their way. Without a second thought or hesitation she moved quickly, into her partner's lap, lips a fraction of an inch from his. "Kiss me." _

_"Excuse me?" Peter stammered. _

_"Our guy is standing four feet from the windshield, kiss me!" she whispered urgently. _

_"You asked for it," he whispered, slightly amused and more than a little curious. One hand slipped to the back of her head as he closed the remaining distance, his lips starting to play over hers. _

_Nicole froze for a moment, her breath catching in her throat. The lips pressing against hers were warm and soft, inviting and before she realized it, she found herself returning the kiss experimentally. *Just to make it look good,* she rationalized. The hand on the back of her neck massaged softly as her partner deepened the kiss. Her ears heard the soft, near inaudible moan as the contact became more pleasurable, and more intimate. *God, I hope that wasn't me...* _

_Peter felt the slight changes in his partner's reactions, and felt as the curiosity became mutual. His lips and hand began lightly teasing. Moments later, he nearly jumped out of his seat as he felt her ungloved hands slipping inside his coat and up the back of his shirt, stroking the warm flesh. The car no longer seemed so cold as his temperature shot up at her touch. Taking one quick glance out the quickly fogging front window, Peter almost gratefully noticed the man still standing a few feet from the car. _

_"He still out there?" she whispered breathlessly against his lips. _

_Peter nodded his answer as he pulled her closer, and worked her jacket open. "Gotta... make it look real..." he whispered in encouragement. The temperature shot up again as she shifted her legs to straddle him in the seat, hips pressing down against his as things began to get out of control. _

_Peter moaned low in his throat, pressing up to meet her. He could feel her heart, hammering in her chest as her lips left his, bound for the open territory of his jaw and throat, covering them with hungry kisses. He pulled her shirt from her pants, wanting to touch bare skin. One touch and the stakeout was completely forgotten as he slowly ground his hips into hers. There was no attempt to conceal the moan of absolute pleasure that time as she rocked back against him in silent demand. "...line of duty..." she panted in his ear. _

_Jacket and coat were quickly discarded in the then overly warm vehicle. She broke the kiss long enough to allow him to slip her sweater over her head and off, left straddling him in unbuttoned jeans and a black silk bra. His lips moved down, latching onto her through the cool silk. _

_"Ohhh God..." she moaned. "...would look more convincing... back seat...." _

_"Anything for the job..." he panted. Peter moved quickly, following his partner as she crawled into the back seat. His hands moved, wanting to help her get rid of the now offending clothing, as a gun shot split the silent night. _

_"Fuck!" Peter fell back, getting tangled up in his discarded clothing. _

_"SHIT!" Nicole sat up quickly, banging her head on the roof of the car with a loud THUMP as she launched herself into the front seat again, bypassed her sweater and tugged on her jacket, zipping up quickly and going for the door handle. _

_Peter desperately fumbled with his pants and shirt, cursing the small confines of the backseat. He was still zipping up as he stumbled from the car, racing off after his partner. _

_Nicole was off and running, chasing down their quarry who was in hot pursuit of another man. Her black boots pounded down the pavement after the fleeing suspect, who had just interrupted something she knew in her head she shouldn't have been doing, but hadn't wanted to stop. This was no longer just the job, this was personal. Gaining quickly on the slower man, her feet left the ground in a flying tackle, bringing him down with his face on the concrete. _

_Panting slightly, Peter caught up with them moments later. "What am I here for?" _

_"Cuffs?" she asked, looking up at him hopefully. _

_"Now that could have been fun..." _

_~ ~ ~~ ~ ~~ ~ ~ ~~ ~~ ~ ~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ _

"Turned out to be a lot of fun, once we got around to it," Nicole snickered. A gasp replaced the snicker as a pair of cold, now ungloved hands found their way beneath her sweater. "Hey! That's MY bodyheat!" 

"I'll share mine if you share yours," he promised, maneuvering her onto her back to cover her body with his. 

"Ohhhh yeah... that's much nicer," she grinned up at him. "If we freeze to death out here at least we'll go smiling." 

Peter propped himself up on one elbow, staring down at his wife's face with a fond smile before planting a warm kiss on her nose. "Can't think of anyone I'd rather freeze to death with. And this might be the last alone-time we can sneak for the next week," he reminded her. 

"I know," she nodded, wrapping her arms around him beneath the blanket. "But, seeing Tom and Mel will be fun. Not to mention having two babies in the house whose diapers we don't have to be responsible for." 

"Might even be fun to have one around whose diapers we *are* responsible for," he ventured. 

The light in Nicole's eyes dimmed almost imperceptibly. "Might be fun... might not be possible," she confessed. 

Peter's fingers came up to absentmindedly play with her hair as he absorbed the implications of what she was inferring. "Is that a definite?" he asked softly. 

"No, it's not a definite. I just don't want to say 'yes', and get our hopes up, and then not be able to deliver. All I'm saying is that there's some amount of doubt as to whether or not I'd be capable of having any more." 

"It's okay, you know," her tried to assure her with a quick kiss. "The three we've got are more than I ever expected. Pop's got his grandson, and the line of Caine blah blah blah..." he laughed. "If we can't have any more it's not a big deal. Heck in a few years we'll probably have some grandchildren running around..." 

"Some *what*??? In a few years???" she laughed, a horrified look on her face. 

"Grandchildren. What did you think? That we were getting younger? Hell, I found a gray hair the other day!" 

Good humor returned to her smile as her eyes immediately went to the thick head of hair above her, searching in the near darkness. "You did? Where?" 

"Right here," Peter answered, his fingers plucking a single hair from her head with a laugh. 

"OH, YOU SUCK!!!!" 

********* 

The minutes turned into hours, slipping by as the temperature in the car dropped, and the snow on the windows piled higher. 

"You know I'm gonna love you, even when the gray hairs are real, don't you?" Peter asked, his eyes lit with humor and genuine contentment, despite being snowbound. 

"Even when we've got wrinkles?" 

He nodded his reply. "Even then. Because they'll be laugh lines, and we'll have given them to each other." 

"I wasn't talking about wrinkles on our faces." 

"Even when you have to pick up your skirt to flash your tits," he assured her, sending his wife into a fit of laughter so hard it shook his body on top of her. 

"You know, parts of YOUR anatomy are gonna wrinkle up too!" she choked out, her sides beginning to ache. 

"Maybe so, but..." His reply was cut short by a rapping at the driver's side window that made them both jump in surprise. "We're rescued! See? I told you someone would be along." Peter crawled off Nicole, leaving her with the blanket as he rolled down the front window. He uttered a groan as his eyes passed over his watch, it was nearly midnight. "Boy, are we glad to see..." His voice trailed off as he got a good look at their rescuer. 

Standing in the snowbank beside the Stealth, was a fat, elderly man. His red suit and white beard completely free from the snow that fell around him. "Having a little car trouble?" he laughed merrily. 

"Ahhhhh, yeah... slid off the road, and got stuck," Peter replied. *Just our luck, getting rescued by a drunk dressed as Santa on his way home from a party.* 

The old man lay a finger along side of his nose and gave the couple in the car a wink as Nicole climbed into the front seat again. "Have you out in two shakes of a reindeer's tail," he chuckled. "You're on my good list," he told Peter. 

"What about me?" Nicole asked, leaning forward, willing to humor the old guy, so long as he towed them out. 

A small frown appeared on "Santa's" face as he peered in at her. "Sometimes," he muttered, pulling back. 

"You have a truck?" Peter asked disbelievingly, the best he'd hoped for was someone with a cell phone to call for a tow. 

The old man laughed hard, hands at his belly. "You two just stay warm and cozy and you'll be on your way in a moment," he assured them, moving away from the window. 

"Now that's a great Santa suit," Nicole laughed, reaching across her husband to roll up the window again, cutting off the rush of cold air coming in. "No green glasses, no firearms..." 

"Yeah," Peter nodded distractedly. He turned around in his seat to look behind them, but the rear window had long ago been covered with snow, as had the sideview mirrors. "I didn't hear a truck, did you?" he asked. 

"No, I didn't. But it's windy," she reasoned with a shrug as the car started to move slowly but steadily backwards towards the road. 

True to his word, the car was sitting on the road less than two minutes later. Both Nicole and Peter opened their doors and stepped out to thank the old man, and pulled up short at the sight of the deserted road. 

"Where the Hell did he go?" Nicole asked, turning to Peter. 

Peter was looking up and down the road, bewildered as he walked behind the car and stared down at the unbroken blanket of snow. "No tire tracks," he called over to her, shaking his head. 

Nicole moved quickly to his side, staring down. There were no tracks of any kind. "Well... then... how...?" 

The distant jingling of bells, high over head caught their attention and drew their eyes skyward. "Did you hear that?" Peter asked, wonder in his voice. 

"No, I didn't, and neither did you!" she warned him, quickly getting back into the car. 

(Fin) 


End file.
